


Mourning

by fishfingersandjellybabies



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4515306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishfingersandjellybabies/pseuds/fishfingersandjellybabies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world was suddenly different, and Goliath knew the most terrible thing must have happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> I love Goliath loving Damian, even when he was a wee bratty baby. And I keep imagining that somehow, Goliath knew when Damian was killed. Maybe not specifically, but that whole ‘sixth sense’ thing that animals have, you feel? I wrote this in five minutes and it’s probably stupid. I don’t care. Happy thursday.

It was instantaneous. One second everything was normal. Fine. Good.

And then the next, the next it felt like the air was heavy. Sour. Poisonous.

He twitched, rubbed his paws repeatedly against his nose. Growled and huffed and whined, because it just wouldn’t go away. That weight of the world, that pain in his chest.

Why. Why did his heart hurt? Why did his soul ache?

He looked up, then jumped. Climbed the tree of his cage. Got to the very top, and looked out across the ocean. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping happily, as his caretaker – the one they called Ravi – fed them, and tended to the garden just outside the walls.

Everything was all right. Everyone was content.

So why did he feel like the whole world had just crashed down?

He howled in agony, let it reverberate around the room, echo across the waters, and dropped from the tree. Curled up against the glass of his enclosure and waited. For an answer from the outside, for this pain in his heart to stop.

No answer came from the waters, from the other creatures of the world, and he ended up sitting there for hours. Laid there in his sadness, calling out every few hours with a low whine, even refusing to eat when Ravi brought him his evening meal.

“What is the matter, Goliath?” Ravi asked kindly, crouching and running his hand tenderly over his ears. “Why are you so upset?”

He groaned pitifully, pressed against the old human’s hand.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know why he was upset.

He just knew it was for the worst reason in the world.

“Everything is fine, great beast.” Ravi soothed. “Get some rest, and the world will be as it should in the morning. Perhaps, for you, I will even call-”

A door on the small side of the compound suddenly burst open. Goliath barely looked at the new arrival, too drowned in his mysterious grief, but sensed the other human was upset as well. “Ravi!”

“What is it?” Ravi asked immediately, standing and backing away from Goliath’s face, running for the stairs that led him out of Goliath’s quarters.

“Terrible news!” The other shrieked, voice cracking with oncoming tears. Goliath huffed a sigh, turned to stare out at the moon rising over the waters. “We have just received the most terrible news out of Gotham City!”

Ravi only hesitated once, on the stairs, before sprinting across the floor. The other human had let his tears fall now, voice breathy as Ravi approached. “Lord Damian has-”

Their tones went hush, then. Goliath only glanced over once, saw Ravi’s face had gone pale, an old wrinkled hand clutching his mouth as the other human sobbed, arms waving as he explained.

The other suddenly collapsed into Ravi’s arms, and Ravi had no choice but to try and consol him. Slowly, he looked back, and Goliath caught his eye. The old man was crying too, silently, though. Face as anguished as Goliath’s own soul felt.

And he still didn’t know. He didn’t know why he felt so miserable, didn’t know what the terrible news was, or how it pertained to his boy Damian. He knew Ravi would tell him. Later, probably. When he and that other man were no longer grieving. But for now…

For now.

He rose back to his haunches, stared up at the moon and let loose a sorrowful howl.


End file.
